1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to manufacturing and in particular to a method and apparatus for manufacturing objects. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a method, apparatus, and computer-usable program code for evaluating the assembly of parts with patterns of features that may have different sizes.
2. Background
American, Canadian, German, and International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards may define methods for specifying multiple levels of feature related tolerances. However, the manufacturing industry may not have an efficient or effective way of determining whether the requirements are achieved. Furthermore, no means for accurately assessing the effects of computer simulations with respect to feature related tolerances may be present for features of more than one design size.
In manufacturing products such as aircraft, numerous parts may be assembled and attached to each other to form an aircraft. For example, without limitation, the airframe of an aircraft may involve matching up hole patterns between various mating parts. In designing these parts and hole patterns, it may be desirable to ensure that when assembled, fasteners can be placed through the holes, or pins in one part, may match up with holes in another part. Some variance may be present in the location and/or size of holes. The tolerance between the size of holes and/or the location of holes may be analyzed to determine whether parts can be properly assembled.
Inspection data of manufactured articles and varied feature data in simulations are not currently evaluated in an automated and correct manner to determine whether or not combined feature parameters, such as hole size and location, are acceptable to the applied feature-relating tolerances when the features are of multiple design sizes. Evaluation of manufactured or simulated hole size, form, orientation, and location may all be completed separately, and confidence in each evaluation may be low.
One method for inspecting data may include paper gauging, in which information may be recorded on paper. This type of process, however, may be time consuming and may have problems of best fitting circles into different hole positions for parts.
Another method may use variation analysis software to assess feature-related tolerances. Approximations and iterations may be used that combine size, orientation, and location variations. Multiple iterations of inspecting feature size and positions may be used to increase accuracy. Multiple iterations, with this type of approximation, may increase the amount of analysis time.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method and apparatus for minimizing errors and time needed to evaluate hole and size locations with respect to tolerances for different features which overcome the problems described above, as well as other problems.